The Worm On The Board Of Apple

With Steve Jobs now safely on permanent TDY to Heaven, Apple Corporation is now the target for years of pent up frustrations. The charming paragon of journalistic integrity, Mike Daisy, has accused the corporation of outsourcing manufacturing jobs to a Chinese Gulag/Sweatshop called Foxconn. Foxconn workers presumably worked 12-hour shifts on the line with nothing in their stomachs beyond a biscuit and some tea.

This sparked great outrage because Mr. Jobs, prior to his sad demise, had attended one President Obama’s interminable fund-raising junkets cum shakedown meetings that he regularly holds with the Satanic 1%™ At this meeting, Mr. Obama inquired of Mr. Jobs what it would take to make iPhones in America. Mr. Jobs was egregiously frank with our Fearless Commander-In-Chief.

Somewhere along the Higher Path of Jihad against Capitalistic America, Mike Daisy’s claims were proven to be “enhanced;” or perhaps more accurately “fertilized.” The radio station WBEZ broadcast some of Daisy’s reportage on Foxconn and quickly found itself issuing a comprehensive retraction.

This should have left Apple Corporation free and clear to do properly non-altruistic things like coin money for its shareholders. But no, it seems like AppleCo now has, of all things, an Al Gore problem. It’s nice to see the rich and well-connected have more in common with Middle America. Apple recently dropped out of The Chamber of Commerce to protest that organization’s opposition to “Cap-and-Trade” as a governmental policy.

It just so turns out that Al Gore joined the Apple Corporate Board. Mr. Gore has been rumored to have strong opinions on the subject of Anthropogenic Global Warming. The fact that Al Gore’s other business interests, completely unaligned with his work at Apple, would have coined a stupendous fortune from Cap=and-Trade is yet another inconvenient truth. This has lead the National Center For Public Policy Research to claim that Gore abused his seat on The Apple Board for personal gain.

On the surface of this, I actually find myself sympathizing just a tad w/ Gore. I really don’t poop, shower and drive to work in the morning to not better my own personal fortunes. Mr. Gore didn’t bully and buy his way on to corporate boards to help other people or to save the plan…

Oh, wait! This is EnviroGore we’re talking about. He really claims that he does do these things to save Occidental Pet…., oops, I mean the planet.

Perhaps this shows us the oblique impact of Eastern Philosophy on Western thought. A man like Gore is supposed to be more altruistic. He is supposed to have evolved past this piggish grubbing for money. According to the Braham-like Transcendalism of 19th Century American Academe, we should think this for two reasons.

1) He’s already farting through silk.
2) He doesn’t have long left on Blessed Gaia to make a positive impact on the commonweal. (And Al’s generosity chakra is rumored to be glued shut like an impacted colon.)

We never will know whether Gore made Apple quit the Chamber to make the passage of Cap-and-Trade more likely. We *do* know that any corporation that personally affronts Barack Obama at a Black-Tie fundraiser is going to get floated a raft of something that doesn’t smell very nice. It’s also interesting to note that having Mr. Gore on the Corporate Board doesn’t make that corporation immune….